


Carol in Wonderland

by breizhbit



Category: Alice (2009), Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hatter POV, Mothers in Wonderland, biomolecular transdystophia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-04
Updated: 2014-06-02
Packaged: 2018-01-18 04:46:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1415587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breizhbit/pseuds/breizhbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Syfy's Alice. Due to a misguided desire to win over his maybe-probably-maybe-not future mother-in-law and prove to her that her husband didn't leave her-at least, not of his own volition-Hatter spirits Carol away to Wonderland. AliceHatter</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In which Carol makes her feelings known

" _David,_ " Carol called, eliciting a wince from her daughter's be-hatted suitor. It always sounded that way lately, as if she didn't quite believe that was his name. The cheek! It most certainly was! Well, at least it was a part of his actual name though it had not been used by anyone for centuries, but there was no way the wretched woman could know that, now was there?

"Alice said she'll be about an hour late. One of her students suffered a minor injury in class, and Alice wanted to stay with him at the emergency room until his family arrives. You're welcome to stay here and wait for her."

Carol finished this speech as she walked into the room where he was sitting, somehow giving him the impression that he was not quite so welcome as she said. Where, oh where had he gone wrong? He'd made such a good first impression on her when he'd telephoned from the hospital, where he'd reluctantly taken Alice after she'd failed to wake up after coming through the looking glass. He'd sounded so lost and earnest and full of concern for her daughter that Carol had graciously asked him to come round to visit Alice once she'd been moved home.

He'd tried so hard to look presentable and like an actual human person. Before coming through the looking glass to visit Alice's home, he'd glamoured himself around the eyes and hair a bit to get a more conventional human appearance going, and had even forgone a hat, partly because he couldn't decide which twenty-first century hat suited him the best, but partly because he wanted to seem respectful. Meeting Carol at the door had frankly been a blur--everything until holding Alice in his arms, kissing her, telling her how he'd missed her. It was lovely, everything he'd hoped, and yet, in that honest moment of heartfelt revelation, it seemed he'd lost the respect of her mother.

" _David,_ " she'd said when they came up for air, "Why didn't you tell me you and Alice knew each other?"

He'd been a bit too blitzed to come up with one of his patented fix-all stories. It was totally true about human emotions coming over strong on the folk of Wonderland. The frail masses could hardly take a drop of contentment and still remain standing, and though Hatter was one of the more solid denizens of Wonderland, able to hold his tea as it were, being this close to such an amazing array of emotions, being the target of them even, it was all he could do to keep conscious. Relief, elation, surprise, adoration, all washed over him in a dizzying rush. Alice's emotions, he told himself, were better than just any oyster's. They were genuine, and strong, and full of conviction. 

While he was thinking all of these rather important thoughts, however, Alice was stuttering out some lame excuse about having met him on her trip to England last summer not thinking she would ever see him again. Her face was red, and it did not take someone who knew her as well as her own mother to know that this story was rather fishy. Hatter caught the tail end of it and wished she'd given him a moment to recover, as he was a much better liar than she would ever be, but the damage was done. At that moment, holding Alice and looking into her blushing face, he couldn't have cared less.

Now, however, he was really wishing he'd built up a bit more of a tolerance to happy-Alice before experiencing it in front of her mother. It had been about two weeks, Alice-time, since the reunion in her apartment and as he had no place to stay in her world, he'd been shuttling back and forth between worlds, causing the suits to grumble that they might as well make him queen what with the way he seemed to hold complete control over the ring, somehow strong-arming the king into delivering the ring to the looking glass to charge it up whenever he wanted to go through. Though he'd never admit it, Hatter was very grateful to Jack Heart for allowing him to get his tea shop back up and running (albeit in a more legitimate form) while dashing back to court Alice on the other side. The biggest problem with the situation, from Hatter's perspective, was that there was no way to definitely pinpoint the time exchange between Wonderland and Alice's world. First of all there was the threat that there would be a sudden shift in the link and Hatter would get to one side or the other hundreds of years after he'd left. This hadn't happened for centuries, but it was still a frightening thought. More pressingly though, at the present rate a week or so in Wonderland was roughly an hour on the other side, but there seemed to be all sorts of extraneous factors that interfered with this. For example, whenever it was raining in Alice's world, Hatter was always several hours to a day earlier than he intended, forcing him to wander about in the rain until Alice was awake or done with classes, or whatever it was that was keeping her from him. He'd used this time to make a quick buck amusing tourists in cafes with sleight of hand and other simple tricks, allowing him to take Alice out in style. Still, the inconvenience was considerable.

At other times he was quite late, whether due to meteorological effects or the price of tea in China he knew not, and this was apparently a black mark against him in Carol's eyes. He wasn't a bloody White Rabbit for goodness sake, yet Carol seemed to hold him up to a rabbit-like standard of punctuality. It seemed like Alice being late would make a nice change, but Carol seemed to consider his presence in her home as further evidence of his unsuitability.

Hatter felt quite irritated at the disapproval lurking in her eyes despite the pleasant expression on the rest of her face. It just wasn't fair that this woman who was so important to Alice refused to accept him. After sulking for a moment or two as Carol gracefully turned to straighten something or other on the mantle, Hatter forced himself to calm down a bit. Much as he wished he got on a little better with Carol, he could see where she was coming from. He lifted his newsboy-style cap to tug at his hair a bit. Her life hadn't been easy. He'd heard bits here and there from Alice, and had started to put the pieces together. 

Carol had been a stay-at-home mother when her husband had disappeared on his way home from teaching class at the University ten years ago. She had loved her husband, and was as devastated as Alice when he'd disappeared. Though they'd had a hefty life-insurance policy, she hadn't been able to draw on it because the leeches at the insurance company had "proof" that he hadn't died. They told Carol that Robert Hamilton had just skipped out on his wife and daughter after withdrawing almost all the funds from their joint savings account and buying a plane ticket to Argentina. After this information had gotten around the neighborhood, it was all Carol could do to hold her head up.

The whole setup seemed like a bit more work than the usual oyster-abduction, but Hatter supposed that the doctors and suits who'd dug up Robert Hamilton, Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA, might have noticed the name of his daughter and figured better safe than sorry. There was nothing to suggest abduction or foul play, only a mundane occurrence of a man fed up with his life, leaving to start afresh on another continent.

Carol had moved Alice to their present apartment, then a crumbling factory loft, all that they could afford with what was left of their savings and the sale of the little yellow house while still keeping Alice in the karate classes she loved. Carol started work in a shop, taking classes at night until she got her degree in interior decorating. It was rather admirable, Hatter thought, but all the same her husband's supposed abandonment seemed to have left her unhealthily focused on her daughter. There had been no men in Carol's life for the past ten years, and few enough female friends, only Alice, who she had managed to keep close to her through it all. When Alice proclaimed that she wasn't ready to go to college and instead wanted to stay at home and teach classes at the dojo, Carol had voiced token protests about her needing to "spread her wings" and "see the world" but had secretly rejoiced at holding onto her daughter for just a little longer. Though Alice seemed to believe that Carol had been pushing her to date, Hatter got the impression that this was a bit of reverse psychology in action. It was hard to believe that cynical, skeptical Alice could fall for such a simple trick, but, Hatter reasoned, these things were most insidious close to home.

Carol was ever more forcefully straightening coasters and picture frames, and Hatter shook himself free of his reverie with a little cough.

"I suppose I'd best be uh...shoving off. Maybe I'll go by the hospital, see if I can walk Alice home." He treated Carol to a rather charming smile and rose from the couch.

Carol sighed and straightened. She put on a smile that seemed even more forced than ever.

"I suppose it must be boring for you here, David. I don't blame you for running out."

"Oh no Mrs. Hamilton, there's nothing I'd like more than to keep you company, I just thought I might catch Alice..."

Hatter trailed off as he reached the door, surprised at Carol's frosty attitude. She'd been increasingly displeased with his presence, but always kept her disapproval strictly under wraps. Today, it seemed to be leaking through. Briefly, Hatter wondered if it was some sort of unpleasant anniversary. It was June, nowhere near her husband's March 23rd disappearance. 

"Hmph."

This was beginning to tick Hatter off. He turned abruptly to face her.

"Excuse me?"

Though he used a mild tone it was more than clear that he was not pleased with Carol's attitude.

"You heard me, if you're _bored_ here don't let me keep you." She rounded on Hatter, pointing at him as though she were driving him from the building and her daughter's life. She walked briskly toward Hatter, causing him to back up as he retreated from the barrage of Carol's unstable emotions. "Just let me tell you, if you get bored with my daughter and just run off, I won't be held responsible--she should never find out what that feels like!"

At this, Carol broke down, kneeling on the floor and sobbing. My my, thought Hatter, she's mad! He laughed a little before he clamped down on himself, remembering that momentarily mad or not, Carol would likely judge any of his behavior that seemed off and use it against him to Alice later on. With a silent sigh, Hatter knelt and tried to do the noble thing. He tentatively patted Carol on the back.

"Hey there, it's okay, yeah? Nothing to worry about. You're fine, Alice is fine."

At this Carol only sobbed harder.

"Hey now, none of that. What's the matter then?"

Hatter continued to pat Carol's back in what he hoped was a soothing way. Suddenly, as though a dam burst, words burst out of Carol in a torrent.

"I can't help it...ever since Robert left...I just wanted to keep her safe, happy--it's so hard, being left behind. I just don't want her to feel that pain."

"Hoh...so this is about your husband!" Hatter said, perhaps a shade too brightly. Somehow it was a weight off his mind that this animosity wasn't personal.

"Him! That bastard! Leaving us and running off to," --sob--, " _Argentina!_ How could he? I trusted him, and he abandoned us! If I ever find him, I'll kill him!"

With this forceful statement Carol pounded on the ground and broke into a fresh wave of angry tears.

"Ah, well, Carol, that's perhaps a little harsh. It's not like he abandoned you really, at least, not on purpose--and you know, it's not good to speak ill of the dead."

Hatter placed his hands to his lips as he realized what he'd said and hoped the woman was too distraught to have understood what he was saying.

"Anyway, I'm not leaving Alice. I know I'm not always on time to dinner and such, but let me tell you it's not easy running a business on a different temporospatial plane than your girlfriend. Always jetting back and forth, no way to take into account the rain..." he sighed. "But the point is, I lo--l-like Alice a whole lot--bunches--and I would never leave her. Certainly not after what we've been through. And I'm not going to stop coming round just because you're worried I'm not suitable. Why, if I gave up every time someone called me unsuitable, I'd be me before I met Alice, and we all saw how far that got me, so. Yeah."

Hatter's eyes widened. Had that been...the truth? Where had his considerable powers of lies and deceit got off to when he needed them? He groaned as he realized that this was probably an effect of Carol's righteous indignation and hurt at being--she believed--deceived and abandoned. He should have stayed across the room. What possessed him to try to comfort a distressed human? It's a wonder he hadn't burst into tears himself.

As far as calming Carol went, his speech seemed to have done the trick. She now seemed perfectly collected, quiet, and certain that he was a psychopath.

"Damn damn damn," he chanted under his breath. This day was just not going well at all.


	2. In which honesty rears its ugly head

"Hatter, what on earth are you talking about?" Carol looked at him with a clear gaze as she delivered this question, despite having rather puffy eyes from her earlier outburst.

Hatter looked away sheepishly, thoroughly ashamed of his little speech that gave away the game. What would Alice say when she found out? He rose from where he'd been kneeling by Carol and quickly backed away across the room, hoping that the distance would allow him to sort out his thoughts and find a way out of the hole he'd dug for himself. So far, three seconds in, it did not seem to be working.

He hedged.

"Why'd you call me that now? David is my real name you know. At least, part of it. I wasn't lying to you."

This came out sounding a little sulkier than he'd intended, but it did serve to distract Carol for the moment.

"I don't know. It's what Alice calls you. It somehow suits you better, I suppose," she replied musingly.

Before Hatter could think to take the conversation in another direction or to just plain abandon ship and leave the apartment, Carol continued,

"Somehow it's easier to think of you as some kind of entrepreneur than a construction worker. I've never once seen you wearing work boots or look anything less than perfectly clean and presentable. Not that I can see how you get any work done at all--you've been hanging around here every day for the past two weeks! And then there's all this business of 'everything' you and Alice have been through together. When could this possibly have happened? Alice says she met you in England last summer, but she was only there for ten days for a karate competition and I spoke to her on the phone every night. When would she have possibly had time to meet you, let alone become involved? Can you honestly tell me that's when you met?"

"...No."

Damn. This was worse than the time the Mock Turtle fed Hatter half a bottle of concentrated honesty and sent him on a date with his niece. At least then he had some power to dodge the questions. Here, he seemed compelled to answer. He just hoped it didn't end with a slap in the face and a door slam the way the other time had.

Carol looked at him keenly, somewhat surprised that he had actually contradicted Alice's story outright.

"Then when did you meet? How did you possibly have had time to miss her before the first time you came here?"

"Well, when I said no to your previous question, what I mean is that..."

Carol fixed him with a piercing no-nonsense stare that reminded him uncomfortably of his own mother, god rest her soul. Hatter sighed.

"Alice isn't going to like that we're having this conversation."

"Now you're saying something I can believe easily. Whether or not Alice wants us to talk, I need to know what she's gotten herself involved in. She may act like she's all grown up, but Alice has actually led a very sheltered life. I would hate to think she's gotten involved in something dangerous, but if she has, I need to know."

Hatter objected to the sincerely worried expression on Carol's face as she braced herself for the worst.

"Oi! There nothing dodgy going on here. You may not realize this but Alice can take care of herself, and has a very well defined sense of right and wrong. One that I hear about on a regular basis. The thing is that some of this is a little hard for an oyst--a regular person such as yourself I mean--to grasp. Nothing bad, just different. Can't you just trust Alice to know what's good for Alice, and let it go?"

There, that was a good tactic. The effects of Carol's emotions must be wearing off. This thought calmed Hatter immensely. He relaxed enough to cross his arms and lean against the doorway. He continued,

"In fact, if there's something you're really concerned about Alice getting up to, why don't you talk about it with her? What with the two of you being so close and all..."

Carol looked a bit stricken at the implication that this issue might be between her and Alice. She quickly rallied.

"I might if I ever saw her alone. However, these days I can't even have breakfast without you popping up unannounced. So I'll ask you again: How did you meet my daughter?"

The intensity of the question shot through his soul, and Hatter couldn't help but resolve to tell what he had to tell to get out of this situation. He sighed once again. These interactions were turning him into something of a sigher.

"We met when Alice was out looking for her old boyfriend. She stumbled into a place she shouldn't have, and I tried to help her get out. She was amazing--so determined to find him, she wouldn't budge til she had. Turned out though, not everything was as it seemed." Hatter paused. "So, she finally ditched the prince and deigned to get pizza with me."

There, that wasn't too bad of a job. He prayed that Carol would leave it at that, but he feared, correctly as it turned out, that she was a little too sharp to accept such a vague tale.

"Boyfriend? Do you mean Jack Chase? But she had him over to dinner the very night she ended up in the hospital. There was no way that she could have possibly done all of that in an hour. She was only out of my sight for maybe ninety minutes from when I left the two of them alone after dinner until I rushed to the emergency room after getting your call."

And it all came back to the time difference. That bloody time difference that left him wet and late and lonely in Wonderland for weeks at a time while Alice got to see him every day. She didn't even miss him. It was hard to be the only one in a long distance relationship. He tried to talk to Alice about it, but she would only mention something about him getting a place in her world. No thought to the tea shop that he'd invested so much in, no thought to his friends and hat collection and employees who might cheat him in his absence. Something had to give. Maybe, he mused, telling it all to Carol would force the issue with Alice, and they could have a real talk about her finally coming back to Wonderland with him. She might have had enough of it for a lifetime, but it was his home, blast it!

Already, Hatter felt himself going on the defensive against an imaginary Alice. She wouldn't like that he involved her mum just because they were having some issues. It wouldn't be like he was using Carol though, because she could benefit in all sorts of ways from learning Wonderland's recent history. Once she realized that Robert hadn't left her for the sandy beaches of Argentina (was Argentina a place with sandy beaches, Hatter wondered) she could finally mourn her loss and put her past behind her. It wouldn't hurt that she'd likely relax her stranglehold on Alice too.

"Tell me," Hatter said, "Did Alice seem a bit surprised when you told her how long she'd been missing?"

Carol looked a little taken aback by the question, but answered readily enough.

"Now that you mention it, she did act a little funny when I told her. And she didn't ask how long she was unconscious, she asked how long she was there. It just seemed odd, since she didn't seem to remember about the building at all. Where was 'there'?"

Hatter laughed.

"Aha, you're a sharp one you are, you've half figured it out yourself, anyway. Alice was surprised, not because I found her in an abandoned house--which I did by the way--but because she was somewhere entirely different for a lot longer than a single hour."

He looked at Carol expectantly with a chuckle, which she found unnerving. Did he expect her to accept something so completely illogical?

"That doesn't make any sense! What are you trying to say?"

Hatter looked a little disappointed that she hadn't just leapt to the correct conclusion on her own. This would make the discussion considerably more difficult. He held in a sigh, since he was really getting tired of them.

"Hmm. Alice seemed to have some trouble with this when I explained it to her, and she was on the other side of the looking glass at the time. I suppose there's nothing for it. So here's the honest truth, Carol: Alice chased a White Rabbit who she thought had kidnapped her boyfriend through the looking glass into another world. Once there, she met me, a lot of daring deeds were done, a politico-economic situation was altered, and Alice got to meet her father after ten years."

Carol was silent, more than a little shocked by this speech, and not at all sure that her daughter's new boyfriend was not a dangerous lunatic. 

Hatter sensed that he was losing his audience, so he hastened on nervously,

"I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, since I guess Alice didn't tell you, but your husband, after ten years of imprisonment--your time--died a noble death freeing a lot of other people from your world and allowing them to go back to their lives. Alice was with him at the end."

Ending with his head bowed gravely, Hatter wondered if perhaps he had not built up to the subject sufficiently. He decided to leave off the part about him avenging Robert's death for the moment, until he had a bit more of a sense of Carol's perspective on such things. In most places Hatter knew of, offing the murderer of a family member would pretty much assure an in with the family, but he suspected this might be an exception to that rule.

"What--why would you say something like that? How could you make up a story like that? Are you crazy?"

Despite her growing fear that the man with her in her living room was some sort of psychopath, Carol couldn't help but be troubled by what he had said about her husband. When Alice woke up at the hospital, the first thing she'd said was "Dad's gone" and as soon as she returned home, she packed up her maps and father-finding resources. Carol had wanted to think that the shock of the accident had forced Alice to reevaluate the way she spent her time. However, knowing Alice, something like a tumble down some broken stairs and temporary loss of consciousness was unlikely to sway her from something she considered her life's mission.

Carol had always known that there was a possibility that her husband had met with some accident after leaving her and Alice, but she never really believed he was dead. Now this nutjob who showed up at her house every day with a different hat was trying to tell her that her husband was abducted ten years ago and brought to another world and had just now died. With Alice there. It was absurd. It was completely unfair that this person could come into her home and harass her like this.

"Excuse me, did you just say Alice and through the looking glass? a White Rabbit? You are dangerously out of touch with reality young man. I think this conversation is over. Please go, and don't try to contact us again or you'll be facing a restraining order."

Carol tried to sound confident, but something about this situation was confusing her. Things weren't adding up. As much as she did not like the way Hatter swooped in and took up all of Alice's time, this was the first hint she'd had that he was disturbed. Usually Alice could be trusted to make good character judgments. Apparently not this time.

"Carol."

Hatter looked at her squarely, with a bit of pity lurking in his expression.

"I'm telling you the truth. I know it's not nice and doesn't match up with how you think about the universe and reality, but that doesn't make it untrue. You must be a pretty amazing woman to have raised a daughter like Alice. If she could deal with all of this while it was happening, you can deal with hearing about it. Don't be childish."

Suddenly Carol was furious. How dare he talk down to her, accuse her of being childish, of all things! All thoughts about the best ways to deal with mentally unstable people rushed from her head, and she couldn't help but challenge him, force him to confront his own wild stories.

"Prove it," she said.


	3. In which Hatter proves a point and tells a tale

Hatter was a bit aghast. He had thought that this conversation would begin and end with words alone, no actions or proofs necessary. What incredibly deep pit was his huge mouth digging him into now?

Then again, why not? Why not take Carol back with him through the looking glass? It should be safe enough for oysters now, and everyone had been expecting him to bring Alice back through for months now, so if he took her mum for a preview, it shouldn't be anything major. He could deal with a few thugs himself anyway. Once Carol saw the world on the other side of the mirror, she'd know he was telling the truth about how he met Alice, and they could visit the Carpenter's grave so that she could have some closure regarding her husband. 

Before he could think about any downsides, Hatter exclaimed,

"All right then. Grab a coat Mrs. Hamilton, and we'll go get your proof. It's not far."

"Go?"

Carol was still shaking with anger, but was unwilling to back down in front of this man. She stomped past Hatter, who was still in the living room doorway, grabbing her coat off the hook by the apartment door. Not wanting to lose the momentum, Hatter hurried to the door and held it open for Carol. He would have to get over to and through the looking glass quickly so that they would be back in plenty of time to meet Alice on her way home from the hospital. Just to be on the safe side, Hatter decided to make it a short trip. A day, or even just an afternoon should be fine. A quick trip through, a few tears at a graveside, and home in time for tea.

Hatter led the way out of the Hamiltons' apartment building with a light step. Carol followed with the weight of anger in every stomp.

They made their way down a few streets and up a back alley or two in a matter of minutes. Hatter glanced over his shoulder regularly to be sure Carol was still following him, and he was glad to see that she remained resolute despite the rather iffy neighborhood they were traversing. Soon he found the correct doorway and lead Carol up the stairs to where the looking glass lay against a whole wall of the room.

She looked so surprised to actually see it that Hatter couldn’t help but give a bit of a chuckle. 

“Told ya,” he smirked.

Before Carol could lose her nerve or even get too indignant, he reached over and seized her arm, hauling her through the glass ahead of him.

The journey separated them physically, and it was all Hatter could do not to trip over Carol’s prone form as they exited the glass on the other side. Two Rabbits descended to help her up before he’d even regained his balance.

“Who’s this then?” one of them asked.

“No unauthorized visitors,” barked the other.

“Relax mates. This is Alice’s mum, making her the Carpenter’s wife, so I’d say she’s entitled to a visit.” He lowered his voice and took one aside a bit, “Or shall I go and tell the king how she’s been ejected from Wonderland without a proper introduction?”

“Let ‘em pass,” said one Rabbit to the other.

“Thank you,” Hatter said, herding Carol toward the door despite her wide-eyed stares and gaping mouth.

Once outside she could barely contain herself.

“Hatter--what in the world just happened? Where are we? Who were those men and why did they know who Alice is? Why did you call me the Carpenter’s wife?”

Hatter interrupted this torrent of questions before it could get any more unmanageable. He indicated for Carol to walk with him along the edge of this tier. The area was being rehabilitated, but it still wasn’t near the sort of spot he wanted to show Alice’s mother to make a good impression.

“Um,” he said, collecting his thoughts. “Interdimensional travel by looking glass; Wonderland, looking glass sector; White Rabbits, sort of security here; Alice as I mentioned earlier was instrumental in a bit of political upheaval here a small while back, now there’s few in the capital that don’t know her; your husband was known as the Carpenter here. I don’t think he rightly remembered being Robert Hamilton after what they did to him in the casinos.”

Carol stopped walking. 

“What did they do to him?”

Hatter turned to look her in the face. 

“I don’t know the specifics of it, I’ve never been on the science team, but I suppose it was something that got him to forget all about his life with you and Alice and focus on doing the job they gave him. He remembered at the end, though.”

Carol looked so distraught that Hatter sincerely wished they weren’t so close to a twenty-story drop. It absolutely would not do to let Alice’s mum leap into the ether in a fit of grief. Hatter grabbed her elbow, not ungently, and urged her on.

“We’ve got to go on,” he said. “This isn’t the place for the whole story.”

Much as he wanted to take Carol back to his shop where they could both relax, Hatter doubted they would be getting that far before she demanded the rest of what he knew. Perhaps it’d be best to get her down to the lake near the palace. It was picturesque, and close enough to both the cemetery and the king if she absolutely needed answers from another familiar source, though he hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

“Let’s get down to ground level and see if we can’t get a boat out of this place. The whole sector gives me the creeps to be honest, and it’s nothing like the rest of Wonderland. A terrible first impression really. Can’t they move that glass somewhere less. . .or more. . .” he trailed off as Carol stood frozen, seeming not to have attended to anything he’d said.

“Was it really not his fault?” she whispered.

“Come on, we’ll go talk about it somewhere else,” Hatter urged. He practically dragged her over to a transport platform so that they could descend with minimal fuss. Carol seemed unnerved by the ten foot square of turf that was rapidly approaching the ground.

“Just like one of your elevators,” he soothed.

Carol continued to look about herself in suspicious amazement as they made their way down to the canal. Hatter had to intimidate another pair of Rabbits into checking him out a boat, but he was getting to be quite good at that, so it wasn’t long before they were speeding along the lake. Carol looked like she might possibly be going into shock, so Hatter quickly chose a place to go ashore. It appeared to be some sort of long-abandoned lakefront estate, but thankfully there were some not-too-rusty wrought iron chairs positioned for viewing the lake, and Hatter wasted no time sitting Carol into one. Alice would never forgive him if her mother went catatonic.

“Carol!” he cried, looking for a reaction. He hesitated for a few seconds and then slapped her sharply on the cheek.

“God! What was that for?” she gasped.

“Sorry, so sorry! I just thought I was losing you for a minute there. Alice would skin me alive if anything happened to you on my watch. And you had asked for the whole story. About your husband. Not that I have the whole story for you, but I’ve found out bits and pieces over the past few months.”

She looked at him with an expression that he found very hard to read. He worried again about her leaking emotions that he couldn’t even identify and scooted his chair back a bit from hers before seating himself.

“Few months? But you said all this happened two weeks ago!”

Great! If she could ask a question like that, Carol Hamilton should be just fine. She was a tough one after all. Hatter felt quite relieved.

“Well, as we discussed earlier, Alice’s whole adventure here in Wonderland took her out of your world for only a few minutes, maybe a half an hour all told. However, it was several days here. Time runs completely separately in our dimensions. It’s a bit of a risk going back and forth, because you never know exactly when you’ll end up. As a vague translation, for every day that passes in your world, a little more than a fortnight passes here. However it’s occasionally much less, like the times when I’m hoping to have missed an interview with my accountant.”

He smiled, but was met only with a scowl. 

“So if my husband was missing for _ten years_ in our world, then how could he possibly have been here up until a few weeks ago? He would have died generations ago!”

“Ouch, well, you do go straight for the tricky ones, don’t ya? Even Alice hasn’t tackled this one yet,” Hatter took a moment to resettle his hat as he thought how best to address this question.

“So. Our world has different natural laws, maybe you’d call them, or guidelines anyway, about time. Is it so far-fetched to think it might also have some different ones governing growth and aging? Well, maybe. But it’s true. We have nothing like your born-grow-up-have-children-grow-old-die cycle. At least not over and over and over like you all do it. Most of us were born, some were hatched. We can age, or not, if we like. We can certainly die, but it’s still not the same as in your world. I don’t exactly know how it works, since I’ve never wanted to find out myself, but some can return from beyond the veil. Be reborn, or just sort of er, re-spawn I think it’s called in your world? Sometimes of their own volition, if they’re powerful enough, but sometimes they need help. And children--well, that’s an entirely different matter.”

Hatter decided to leave that complicated and confusing topic alone for the moment, since it wasn’t really pertinent to the current discussion. Also because it made him feel slightly sick to his stomach. Mostly in a bad way, but maybe a teeny tiny little bit in a sort of anticipatory way. Or maybe that was just hunger gnawing at his stomach. It really had been some time since his last meal. He forced his eyes back to Alice’s mother from where they had been staring out across the lake.

Carol was looking at him as if he had confessed to liking to dress in women’s underthings, rather than offered her a reasonable explanation! He fumed. More reasonable than she’s going to get out of most of this lot in Wonderland.

“So you are saying that my husband lived here for more than a hundred years working on some project that he was specifically abducted to do. Why? Why on earth would anyone from your world have any interest in my husband? He was a university professor in psychology for goodness sake, not some sort of experimental research scientist. And while I’m sure he’d tell you his areas of expertise were vital to understanding the human condition I can’t see what value they could possibly have to anyone in your world.”

Carol looked at him intensely, her eyes fraught with this same volatile emotion he’d had trouble classifying before.

Okay, so, now was the time when he had to explain what they’d been doing with all those oysters in Wonderland. It needed to be done with finesse, or she’d get the wrong idea about everyone in Wonderland. He needed to downplay his own part in the racket and put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Queen of Hearts where it belonged, and well, if a little spilled onto Jack Heart so much the better for Hatter.

“You see, Carol, once upon a time there was a little girl named Alice, who came to Wonderland from your world and changed everything. Not our Alice, of course, no, this one was a rude little thing all blonde curls and blue eyes and squeaky little voice. She was only here twice, I believe, and then went back to her world--your world--for good, but while she was here, the most remarkable discovery was made. I’m not quite sure who first realized it. You can be sure the Queen of Hearts took all the credit, but it was more likely someone else from her court who noticed. You see, every emotion felt by the girl had the most incredible effect on the people and creatures of Wonderland. Her very presence was intoxicating, but since her emotions were so wild and uncontrolled quite a bit of her effect worked to make people feel terrible about themselves or desire to prove themselves to her in one way or another.

“Whoever noticed this, it was the Queen of Hearts who ordered experimentation done to see whether this phenomenon was unique to this one child, and they found that it was not. Any person from your world could sort of transfer their emotions to those of Wonderland. So. The queen set some people to working on the project, trying to see whether or not these emotions, or rather their effect on the denizens of Wonderland, could be put to use.

“Her team found out how to harvest and distill positive emotions. These became not just the currency of Wonderland, but the reason for most people’s existence. She came out with them, providing drops for free at first, then they became the payment for any and all work done or services rendered. But that wasn’t enough for her. She pushed to keep discovering more refined and exotic emotions. She needed to keep the public in thrall, so that no one could rise up against her. So she started casting her net in your world for an expert. Someone with knowledge of human emotions and how to evoke ever more specific ones.”

“And she found Robert.”

“Eventually, yes.”

“That bitch,” fumed Carol, brimming with anger.

Hatter sprung up from his seat and backed a few paces away. He could already feel his pulse racing, adrenaline pushing him to go out and hurt the imprisoned former Queen. She had been locked up in the highest tower of the palace at first, but now even Hatter did not know what remote location had been chosen for her exile. In fact, the information may have been kept from him particularly due to his association with Alice.

“Carol, please. You’ve got to bear in mind what I said. Your emotions are dangerous here. Let’s move on and maybe you can calm yourself a bit as we go.”

“Go where? You’ve pretty well proven that this place exists.”

The Hatter took a few steps toward her and removed his hat, twirling it in his hands nervously.

“I thought you might like to visit your husband, in the royal cemetery, I mean.”

“Oh. I see.” Carol’s anger dissipated for the moment, but it was replaced by a wave of such staggering melancholy that Hatter himself staggered.

“Let’s go.”


	4. In which Hatter is thwarted

They picked their way through the forested countryside, Hatter only pausing when Carol seemed to need to catch her breath. It would have been shorter to take the boat further along the lake to the Heart’s Palace and then straight back through the hills, but Hatter had avoided Jack Heart’s interference so far, and would rather not have to deal with him if it could be helped. 

Eventually the forest gave way to a somewhat run-down but still managed park. An avenue of pin oaks lead to the grand mausoleums of the royal families, but the area back toward the hills was where those associated with the Heart family were buried. Hatter led Carol on toward the grave of the Carpenter.

“Just a bit further on Carol,” he encouraged.

Rather than continuing to follow him down the brick-lined path, Carol stopped. 

“Why do you know where my husband is buried? Has Alice ever come here?” she asked somewhat hesitantly, as if unsure of whether or not she wanted to know his answer.

“No. Alice has never been back to Wonderland at all. Just the one time and, well, she says she’s had enough of it if you must know.”

Carol absorbed this information, as well as the way it seemed to bother the Hatter more than he wished to let on that Alice refused to return to his homeland.

“As to the other, I attended his funeral. Alice declined to join me.”

They resumed their walk through the rows of quiet dead, with Hatter tromping miserably on. 

They continued on in silence for a while, which Hatter was extremely grateful for. Thinking about the day he’d asked Alice to come back with him to attend her father’s memorial never failed to make him feel sick. Granted, she hadn’t had much time to think about it. While a good week had passed in Wonderland, Alice had only spent one night in her own home before he asked her about the funeral in the morning. Hatter had known that Alice had many unresolved abandonment issues despite her assertions directly after the fact that seeing her father one last time had given her the closure she needed to let him go. Still, he had not expected the vitriolic anger with which she had shifted the blame that she used to place on her father onto the whole of Wonderland. 

“Go back?” she had asked blankly, as if it had never even occurred to her that it was possible. As if he hadn’t already been back-and-forth three times for her in scarcely twelve of her hours.

“Just for the service, you know,” he’d hastily added, not wanting to ask too much of her or give her the wrong idea. Not that it would technically be a wrong idea if she thought he’d like to spend time with her in Wonderland, in fact that was actually an idea he hoped she’d come round to, but Hatter sensed it would be best to start small.

“I have to teach class this afternoon,” she said as if that settled it.

“Alice, you know we could spend three days backpacking in the Sferren Goodlands in Wonderland and still be back here in a matter of minutes. They’re waiting the service on you anyway. Many would like to pay their respects but the King insisted on asking you first. So would you? Come home with me, please?”

Hatter hated sounding so vulnerable in front of Alice, but she still seemed to shake off all his layers of armour and leave him open. Was this an effect of her being an oyster? An Alice? Or maybe it was just her own special trick. He didn’t know, but he couldn’t say he cared for the way she constantly threw him off balance while maintaining her own.

Alice turned away from him. They were sitting in her room, and she’d been showing him something or other on the screen they used for entertainment and communication in her world. He’d been asking about the types of tea they had, since he’d been changing over to actually selling actual tea in his teashop. Alice had bounded over to her screen-and-typewriter setup and had been happily typing things in and reading things out while he sat beside her in a chair, contemplating the open door and the “my house my rules” talk he and Alice had been treated to by Carol the night before (a week and a half ago for Hatter.) Then he’d said what he needed to say about the funeral, and Alice had shut right down, her eyes going shuttered and her voice cold.

“Alice,” he’d all but pleaded, “it would mean so much to have you there.”

“To who? To all the people who stole him and used him up and killed him? I somehow doubt that anyone in That Place cared about my father.”

“You don’t know that Alice. He lived and worked with the science team of the Hearts Palace for a long time. There’s plenty of good people there, sure they worked for the queen, but so did your father. It’s not as if they had any more choice than he did about it.”

“Were their memories erased? Were they made to leave and forget their wives and children? I don’t appreciate you trying to make our case seem like an every-day occurrence!” cried Alice.

As much as he wanted to yell, yes, they probably were, and yes, it probably was, he didn’t think that would help the situation. Alice clearly wanted to feel put upon and angry and Special, and her case was special, just maybe not these parts. So Hatter bit his tongue and tried another tack.

“Charlie was hoping to see you. He asks about you every time, can’t believe you won’t come back through to see your most loyal knight or something.”

Alice just put her head down and turned away from him. “Everyone in Wonderland has been fine for centuries without me. I think they’ll be able to keep soldiering on.”

“But Alice, things weren’t ‘just fine’. We had a meglomaniacal monarch intent on dosing up the entire population with positive human feelings.”

“And not one of you bothered to deal with this on your own.”

“Alice, that’s not fair. You well know there was an entire resistance organization dedicated to overthrowing the Queen. Including the prince himself!” his voice softened, and he added in a mumble, “Including me.”

“And what did that accomplish? You just pandered to the Queen! You all need to learn to solve your own problems without dragging innocents into them.”

“It was the Queen who took your father, Alice. Plain and simple.”

“The Queen took my father, but the resistance took me. Manipulated me into going through the glass. The Queen may have been some big baddie, but the rest of you used me, needed my involvement for some reason to make things finally happen.”

“And for that we are grateful. Please give me a chance to show you that, Alice. Give Wonderland a chance.”

His desperation seemed to finally make an impression on her, but she was still unwilling to listen to his pleas on behalf of his world.

“Oh Hatter, I don’t want to sound like I’m mad at you. I know you had nothing to do with dragging me into Wonderland. But the rest of them, all those people who did nothing and stood by knowing my father was stolen from his world...I just can’t forgive that so easily.”

Then she jumped up, asked him whether he fancied breakfast from the Mexican diner down the street and pulled him out the door without waiting for a response.

Hatter had tried to bring up the idea of attending the funeral again, but had been shut down each time. He finally resolved to go back after lunch and tell the King to just go ahead with it. And so Hatter, Charlie, Jack, a whole pack of suits and the entire science division formerly of Heart’s Casino stood in solemn silence while the Carpenter was laid to rest in the royal cemetery. Just over the next rise and he’d be back in that spot.

“There’s so many, for a world where people don’t age,” Carol remarked, looking at the gravestones, many with a heart, spade, diamond, or club shaped headstone.

“Well,” said Hatter, “If age doesn’t get you something else will. Wonderland hasn’t been the safest of places these past hundred years or so. It’s getting better though. Much as I may not be the hugest fan of the leader of the new regime, it is definitely a vast improvement over the former Queen of Hearts.”

They crested a slight hill, and Hatter pointed toward where he knew the grave site to be. However, when he looked closer there was a disturbingly empty rectangle of earth going down at least the traditional seven feet deep. A deuce of spades in the old-fashioned livery of the castle gardeners was slowly filling it in.

Hatter exchanged a disturbed look with Carol, and they both rushed up to the grave. He got there slightly before Carol, mostly due to his more practical footwear. Though Carol was thankfully in flats, the smooth soles left her slipping a bit on the grass.

“Oi!” Hatter cried, “What’s this then? Where’s the bloody Carpenter?”

The Deuce turned around in surprise, leaning on his spade as he took in the sight of Hatter, who everyone more or less knew by sight, and an older lady in an off-white pantsuit who he’d never seen before. Carol was panting with both exertion and distress.

“Wilikers!” exclaimed the Deuce, clearly reeling from what Carol was putting out. “Dunno where he is, honest sir! They ‘ad me take up the sod and dig ‘im up yesterday. Orders from the King they was. Straight from the King!”

Seeing the poor chump’s reaction reminded Hatter how hard oyster emotions hit his kind. He himself was somewhat...inured due to his position as Teashop owner, which Alice had unkindly likened to an opium den of the late 1800s. It wasn’t that he was an addict like the customers he served, though he could hardly refuse to take tea in his own shop with the big spenders and suppliers from the Queen’s Court. He just dealt with the stuff all day, every day and had become used to it.

“Why in the world would your King dig up my husband’s body?” asked Carol, confused and appalled.

Well, Hatter could think of one reason, but they’d talked about this before the funeral—well before actually. It was one of his first questions on being called up to see the King after his first visit to Alice’s world: could the Carpenter be revived? Jack Heart had sighed and Hatter had believed him when he’d said that unfortunately the only person with the expertise needed to reanimate the Carpenter was the Carpenter. Possibly the Walrus, but they’d have just as many problems getting him back up and running and there was no one who particularly relished the idea of trying.

So besides breathing life back into Robert Hamilton’s body in order to curry favor with Alice, what reason would the King have for digging up the ex-head of the science division? Hatter couldn’t think of a single one.

“‘Er ‘usband?” squawked the deuce. “‘oo’s she then?”

“I am Carol Hamilton, and the grave you have disturbed belonged to my husband, Robert Hamilton.”

“Caroll. Like, _the author_?” The gravedigger’s voice went low and his eyes went wide.

“No, not the author you idiot!” replied Hatter swiftly, shrugging apologetically at a very bewildered Carol.

He sighed (again with the mournful exhalations!) and turned to face Carol. Bugger all, he really hadn’t wanted to do this.

“Well, it seems our hand’s been forced, Mrs. Hamilton. Let’s go see the King,” he said regretfully.

“The King?” she repeated.

“Yes,” he paused, really not wanting to go into all of this. “I believe you’re acquainted. Our new monarch is Jack Heart, the son of the former Queen, though I believe you knew him as Jack Chase.”

“Jack? Chase? You mean...Alice’s boyfriend? The nice-looking one with marvelous teeth who came to dinner?”

Hatter gritted his own not-so-perfect teeth. “I don’t know about all of that, just about how he lured Alice to Wonderland to try to upset the balance of power and usurp the throne.”

“But you were just saying how horrible the Queen was and how you liked the new King.”

“No, Carol,” he snapped, “I did not say that I liked the King. Not one bit. I admitted that the new regime is definitely less bloodthirsty and more civic-minded, but personally, I am not a fan of that poncy high-handed Alice-manipulating. . .” Hatter just sort of trailed off into inaudible mumbles, mostly because he was trying very hard to mind his language around Carol, and because he knew he would have to act civil when confronting Jack. Civil, after all, was what kept him able to travel through the Looking Glass at will. It was what kept him from having to choose between Alice and his world. At least, for now.

The distance to the current palace was short. While there was much debate about whether or not the King would build a new palace in the style of the Casino or an entirely different style, for now the administration occupied the historic Hearts Estate. This was a hastily-renovated mid-thirteenth-century monstrosity located very near to the cemetery, which was convenient for them.

Hatter and Carol strode back through the cemetery but turned off into the gardens behind the Hearts Estate. No way was Hatter going to go all the way round to the front. It was much too long a walk, and Carol didn’t need to be any more impressed with Jack, so the splendid approach would just have to be viewed some other day.

He kept up his pace right through the parterre gardens, stepping over some inconveniently placed shrubbery and then up onto the terrace. Carol managed to hurry after him, until they were both stopped at the French doors leading inside by a couple of suits. A few muttered words into their headsets, however, and Hatter and Carol were being ushered into a splendid but decidedly anachronistic drawing room. Early Renaissance tapestries covered walls with prettily patterned Edwardian wallpaper and a mod-looking black and white striped rug covered the original flagstone floors.

The King rose from a royal blue brocade wing-back chair to greet them. 

“Ah, Carol. So lovely to see you again. Though I regret the circumstances that have doubtless brought you here.”

He took her unresisting hand, and though he didn’t quite go so far as to kiss it, he made some sort of bowing motion that seemed to work on Carol, for the tension drained out of her and she said warmly, “Jack. It’s a relief to see a familiar face in this place.”

Hatter bit back a scream of indignation. Had he or had he not just personally shepherded Carol around Wonderland on the trip she requested? She had met Jack what, once? Twice? Did he even come to see Alice after she’d been in hospital? No. Hatter had been an almost-constant presence for the past two weeks, but Jack who she’d known all of a day longer was the familiar face she’d longed to see? Unbearable. He started to rethink the necessity of getting Carol on his side.

“I am terribly sorry for your loss. It was unfortunate that neither you nor Alice could make it to the memorial. However, I am happy to say that we may be able to do something about the situation after all.”

Jack Heart finally took his eyes from Carol’s face and acknowledged the sullen Hatter lingering in the doorway.

“Have you prepared Mrs. Hamilton for the possibility of reanimation?” he asked.

“I didn’t like to mention it specifically, as you said it was impossible when I asked,” he grumbled. “However, I explained to Carol earlier that life and death don’t follow the same course in Wonderland.”

“Reanimation,” Carol gasped, looking once again as though she might faint.

Jack solicitously ushered Carol over to a chaise lounge and helped her to seat herself.

“Of course this must come as a shock to you,” he soothed, “it was most unkind to bring it up so suddenly into the conversation.”

Even though Jack had been the one to use the word, Hatter got the feeling he’d just been blamed for her reaction.

“When you’re feeling more yourself, we can go down to the laboratories, where the technicians have been preparing for the procedure. They have everything organized; we were just waiting for someone who knew Robert personally in your world to help revive him. We’d thought to have Alice do it, but when I heard you’d arrived earlier, we had a lab prepped for your arrival. Of course we would have been happy to send a transport to save you all the trouble of walking, but you’d gone before I had a chance to order one.”

Great, more blame piled on top of Hatter. As if he hadn’t realized this would be his reception for not bringing Carol straight to the King. At least the way things went he’d had a bit of a chance to give Carol the real story. This blighter was still harbouring feelings for Alice and seemed determined to make Carol forget entirely that it was his mother who had stolen Robert Hamilton in the first place and he himself who was sent to lure Alice away from her home into the perils of Wonderland.

“No, no, I’m fine. Please, let’s go immediately. I want to finally see my husband again, whatever his. . . status.”

Carol stood somewhat shakily, but she seemed determined to find out what they intended to do to her husband’s remains. Jack lead them through a labyrinth of wide corridors and stone staircases, down underground to the area the science division had been shunted into after the destruction of their facility at the Casino. Finally they reached a hallway of newly-installed translucent doors. Jack walked up to one and held it open for Carol. 

Once inside it was hard to ignore the two steel tables in the room. One held the impeccably-preserved body of Robert Hamilton clothed in his standard science division coverall. The other was empty but a stand nearby held numerous electrodes connected on one end to the body of the deceased. A technician in orange scrubs was reading the meters mounted along one wall. She turned toward them but instead of acknowledging their presence adjusted a dial on one of the tubes attached to the body of the table. Hatter could just barely make out the name “Kyoko” on her badge. 

Carol stood there dumbly for a moment, mouth open. Hatter reminded himself that this was the first time Carol had seen her husband in ten years.

“Well, she murmured, “At least he doesn’t look like a zombie. Yet.” 

Kyoko advanced and led a reluctant Carol over to the unoccupied table and began attaching the electrodes from the stand to her body one by one.

Carol seemed to come to herself and tried to brush the other woman off. She turned angrily to Jack, who, Hatter was pleased to note, was looking a bit worried.

“Why would you all let us think he was dead—gone forever—when you knew you could bring him back? The first thing Alice said when she woke up in the hospital was ‘Dad’s gone.’ Why would you make her go through the pain and grief of losing her father all over again?”

“Carol,” said Jack in that not-quite-openly-smarmy cultured way of his, “We didn’t mention anything at first because we weren’t sure how the procedure was conducted. It gave us hope to find a set of instructions that the Carpenter had written out himself for carrying out his own reanimation which took into account his origins as an oyster. Your husband, as chief of the science division under the former Queen of Hearts, supervised most of the cases of reanimation required, so it was quite a challenge to perform the procedure without him.”

Kyoko the science team lackey pushed her pink glasses up on her nose and continued to adjust the electrodes connecting Carol to the corpse of her dead husband. She added, “That and we’d never had one with its head still on. Death by gunshot was totally new for us, and without the Carpenter to take the lead, we needed time for a bit of trial and error. Biomolecular transdystophia is a tricky business, and doing the whole bit without the boss, well, it’s a miracle that we’ve gotten this far!”

Carol looked deeply concerned at that confidence-boosting declaration, and Jack just shrugged and smiled placatingly. 

“I’m sure this opportunity to use your feelings for your husband in the reanimation procedure will more than make up for any difficulties following your husband’s notes on the part of the science team.”

“That doesn’t make any sense at all,” said Carol, looking between the man she had encouraged her daughter to pursue and the one who she couldn’t get to leave them in peace for breakfast.

“Does any of it?” asked Hatter. “I mean, like I’ve been telling you all day, the rules are different. If our time runs differently, and we can come back to life and be affected by human emotions then it stands to reason there will be other differences as well. In such a world, why shouldn’t your feelings for your husband be more important to resuscitating him than whatever potions and wires the science team here can come up with?”

She looked at him consideringly. “Well, I suppose that makes as much sense as anything else in this place. So you just want me to, what? Think about how my husband makes me feel?”

Kyoko looked at a clipboard. “The emotions that you feed into him will resonate with the parts of his character that manifest most strongly in his new incarnation. We had determination, curiosity, and clinical detachment down as traits to encourage in his file, but if there’s something else we should aim for...”

She trailed off and looked at the King, but it was the Hatter who picked up the thread.

“What she’s saying, Carol, is that the parts of your husband’s personality that will be most obvious right away can be influenced by the emotions that you send him through the link.”

He paused, trying to think of a tactful way of saying it, but he just forged ahead, honest as can be. What a terribly awkward spot these Hamiltons put him in!

“I know Alice still has a lot of anger about her father’s disappearance and that even though she knows the truth now, and doesn’t exactly blame him, it’s still part of what she feels when she thinks about him. If that’s true for you, which it bloody well seems like it is from the way you were carrying on earlier, then you might want to think good and hard about how that might affect your husband when he comes back.”

Carol finally submitted to Kyoko’s attempts to get her to lie back on the table. She lay there looking very nervous, and Hatter gave her a surreptitious thumbs up behind Jack’s back before they were ushered from the room by a new lackey who showed up at the push of a button from Kyoko. As the door shut, Carol looked across to the body of her husband lying on the cold metal slab across from her, and couldn’t help the feeling of anticipation that stole over her, despite how ridiculous and crazy it was to get her hopes up.


	5. In which biomolecular transdystophia occurs

Hatter retreated to the sterile white hallway to stand next to the king who was looking through a large single pane window that Hatter realized was a one-way glass for viewing the lab. Carol looked nervous but determined. Hatter watched idly as she noticed the cuffs of her pant legs were slightly grass stained, and she scrubbed at them fiercely with a tissue for a moment before lying back on the table with a huff. Determination seemed to be one characteristic their entire family had in spades. The second orange-jump-suited science team member had returned inside to help Kyoko sedate Carol before disappearing through an interior door with a vial and a clipboard. 

“You think it’ll work then?” Hatter half-questioned Jack Heart. Jack shrugged elegantly, his perfect princely hair glinting under the fluorescent lighting. Obviously if he didn’t think it had a chance he wouldn’t be trying it, but the thought of sending poor Carol in there to lay next to her husband’s dead body for nothing made Hatter squirm. Apparently Jack felt the same way, as he looked on and muttered, “The science team feels much more confident in their ability to alter oyster memories.”

Hatter chuckled nervously, glancing at the king out of the corner of his eye to gauge whether or not he was seriously considering doing such a thing to Alice’s mother. The king eyed him back, and for once their thoughts were united in wondering whether or not they could get away with keeping that secret from Alice. Hatter would of course need some assurance from Jack that he wouldn’t be blamed, and Jack would want the same from him. After all, Alices were notoriously adept at inciting regime changes in Wonderland.

Before they could become more deeply embroiled in this plot, they were interrupted by Kyoko’s muffled shouts. The two would-be conspirators rushed through the door and the cries became intelligible. While the two figures on the tables stayed deathly still, the sound from the diminutive woman in scrubs was now loud and clear. It was an emphatic and enthusiastic “Yessss!” accompanied by some little hops and no small amount of fist pumping. “Who’s the best RA? I think we all know the answer to that now! Look at that pulse!” She was speaking into her handset, presumably to the other members of the science division. “First try baby! Suck it, Justin.” 

One brown eye cracked open under a bushy brow. “Kyoko,” he growled, voice gravelly from disuse. “No one likes a show-off.”

Suddenly Kyoko schooled her features into pseudo-demure suck-up mode. “Yes boss! And might I say how glad I am to see you back up and running sir. The protocol you left was nothing short of brilliant.”

The Carpenter, also known as Robert Hamilton, waved his hand and his Research Assistant (who felt pretty confident in her imminent promotion to Senior Research Assistant) shut up. He raised himself up on his elbows, looking past the monitoring equipment to where Hatter and Jack stood by the door.

“The prince and the pusher,” he greeted ironically. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Hatter and Jack exchanged guilt-tinged concern with more sideways glances. It was getting to be their thing. Hatter shuddered to himself. He did not need a thing with Jack Heart. He glanced at the table beyond the Carpenter, where Carol still slept. 

“That’s not strictly accurate at the moment,” deflected Jack, who brushed imaginary detritus off his perfectly tailored blue pinstriped suit and carefully maintained eye contact with the man on the table. Hatter got the hint and discreetly moved his gaze back to the Carpenter. “How are you feeling?” the king continued, “It’s good to see you up and running after all that’s happened. It would be enormously helpful, though, if you could tell us what you remember of recent events.”

The Carpenter rubbed his face with his palm, trying to collect himself. Suddenly a thought overtook him and he gasped, trying unsuccessfully to rise. 

“Alice!” he cried. Kyoko and Hatter rushed forward to support him. 

“She’s fine,” assured Hatter and Jack in the same breath. They shared yet another glare.

The Carpenter hardly seemed to have heard him. He brushed them off and sat up on the table. “I remember Alice, and the details of my life—my real human life—suddenly came back up, then...ouch.”

He looked up, eyes hard, “Walrus, that bastard. What happened next?”

Kyoko nodded at the Hatter. “He got him. Right through the heart. A clean shot. You have the thanks of the science team.” 

Hatter took a moment to bask in the gratitude. At least someone appreciated a little well-timed vengeance. Then the thought struck him that she might have been thanking him for the ease of reanimation and he was not so thrilled.

Perhaps thinking along the same lines, the Carpenter growled, “Your mother doesn’t need him back, does she, Your Highness? I promise that things will be just as productive around here without him.”

Jack cleared his throat.

“No. The Walrus is not scheduled for reanimation. There have been several changes while you were. . .out. . .that you should be made aware of. I am now the reigning monarch in Wonderland, as my mother opted to abdicate and go into seclusion after the destruction of the Hearts Casino and my father’s unfortunate demise in that calamity. The current crop of oysters have been sent back to their world undrained, and should be reintegrated into their lives, since none of them were gone for very long.

“The catalyst for this change was, as you have no doubt gathered, your brave and beautiful daughter Alice. She was brought here by the resistance, at Caterpillar’s prediction. He was completely certain there was no other way. She has since been returned to her home.”

Well, that was more than Hatter had heard on the matter before. Still, it didn’t give Jack much of an excuse for going out there and trying to lure Alice to Wonderland by seducing her. He could have dangled some information about her father out there, and Alice would have hared off through the looking glass with no further prompting. No need to seduce. Speaking of seduction—he looked at Jack sideways. He’d never wanted to ask, but he couldn’t pretend to himself that it wasn’t eating him up inside. How far did Jack get with Alice? It would be incredibly bad form to take advantage of her while trying to get her to Wonderland, but it could well have happened. She seemed so sure of him when she’d first come to Wonderland. From the way she’d called him her boyfriend and was determined to find him, Hatter had assumed that this was a long term stable partner. It had killed him as he’d gotten to know the fiery Alice.

Now he couldn’t help but wonder if Jack had been as smitten with Alice in his own way as she had been with him. Understandable, but unpleasant.

The Carpenter seemed to take all this in stride. 

“So if the Queen of Hearts is out, the oyster project is out, and Alice is out of Wonderland, why do I find myself back in?” The Carpenter arched a slightly grizzled brow and nodded toward Hatter. “And why is he here?”

Hatter decided to scoop up the ball while he had a chance. 

“I am here as Alice-world liaison. As you might imagine, Alice didn’t get the best of impressions of our world, so I’ve been going back and forth, trying to get her to listen to reason. So far, no dice, but I’m sure your continued existence will finally tip the scales.”

“So Alice isn’t here?” Robert asked a little wistfully. “I suppose you wouldn’t have wanted to get her hopes up...but then how—” here he turned as he thought, and there was nothing Hatter or Jack Heart could do to stop him. Bushy brows rose, mouth rounded in shock. He took in Carol, her off-white pants suit and highlighted hair and well as a hundred other details none of the others present would ever think to look for.

“Carol,” he gasped incredulously, “ _in Wonderland?_ ”

Jack rushed forward and spoke quietly. “It seems likely that she will sleep a little longer if she’s not disturbed—if you feel able to step outside, it might be best.”

“Here, up we go,” Hatter said, coming to the Carpenter’s other side. He and Jack hauled the poor man up despite his muffled protests.

Unfortunately, this effort came too late, for Carol was already stirring on the metal slab, pulling at the electrodes that Kyoko had painstakingly attached to her head, heart and hands. Jack and Hatter gave up and resettled the Carpenter on the edge of his slab. Hatter felt nervous anticipation rolling off of him, and he tried to figure out whether it was coming from Carol, or if the Carpenter had regained some of his original oyster emotional power, or whether this was all just coming from his own fears of how this reunion would affect his relationship with Alice. Oh drat. Now that he’d got that far, there was no denying that if this didn’t go well, there was going to be hell to pay, and Alice would be the debt collector.

Hatter wasn’t sure what he could possibly do to smooth over the situation between Alice’s parents. As his mind was racing along, trying to provide him with some hint of what to do, events were unfolding on their own.

Carol Hamilton caught sight of her husband for the first time in ten long years, Alice-World time, and she stopped short in shock midway between lying down and sitting. Despite all the impossible things she had seen that day, there was no denying that she had not actually expected this mad scheme to bring her husband back from the dead to work. She hovered on her side mid-movement, the only sound in the room the loud whoosh of the air circulation system.

Carol sat the rest of the way up, and the discomfort and awkwardness visible on her face was nothing to the knots it was tying in Hatter’s gut. Jack Heart looked somewhat affected too, but poor Kyoko had doubled over and was coughing and gagging miserably. Robert Hamilton looked at her worriedly. He was still too weak and woozy to assist her himself, but he gestured and Hatter and Jack stepped forward.

“Kyoko, why don’t you go get some air? A little bit of scotch or chocolate might help too,” the boss suggested kindly. 

Carol looked at him with a piercing expression, and Hatter felt rather than perceived in any other way her annoyance and anger at seeing to his assistant’s well being before addressing her. That was rather unkind, thought Hatter, but before he could open his mouth to say anything another wave crashed through him, this time of remorse. Carol must have had the same thought. Kyoko groaned in despair at this fresh assault.

“Is she okay?” Carol asked as Jack and Hatter moved to guide the girl from the room. Hatter let Jack take her outside, his own desire to get away from the emotional maelstrom at odds with his need to supervise Alice’s parents. It wouldn’t do to have the Carpenter brought back to life just to be sent right back to the beyond by his angry widow. What would Alice say? Hatter shuddered to think. No matter the outcome, Hatter was keenly aware that all of this would be seen by Alice as his fault, as it could only have been he who brought Carol through the looking glass in the first place. Anything that happened after, for good or ill, would be on his head. He suspected that even on the off chance things came out well Jack Heart would be right there to take all the credit for her father’s successful reanimation, so he had to take any chance to make inroads with Alice’s parents. 

Hatter struggled desperately to collect his thoughts. Thinking on his feet was usually his specialty, so he couldn’t allow himself to fall down on the job now. There were a few ways that Hatter could think of to influence Carol and the Carpenter to come to terms. One option was guilting them about Alice. Guilt could be a powerful motivator, but it might be more fruitful, he guessed, to try to go for the positive. At one point the two people here had cared deeply for one another, and they had not separated of their own volition. There must be something there to work with. He could always save the guilt to try later.

“Carol,” Hatter said, “do you think you could give us a break from the anger?”

Carol scoffed and looked offended, but then a little embarrassed when she realized it was her anger and distress that had driven Kyoko from the room clutching her stomach. She turned her head away from him to stare at some of the lights blinking on the scientific apparatus that took up one wall of their little room. Lord knew what they did, but it certainly looked modern and efficient. Maybe that’s all it took in a place like this.

“It’s natural to be nervous,” Hatter continued, which garnered a supportive head nod from Robert, “but I think there are better ways to channel your feelings than giving Wonderlanders stomachaches. For example, this is your husband here who you haven’t seen in ten years. I know you missed him—you were hurt and so betrayed when they told you he’d run off to Argentina. I’m sure that was very painful, but it also means that you must have trusted him very much. Now that you know he didn’t leave you, what would you like to say to him? What do you want to ask him—not what you’ve imagined all this time—but after you’ve heard the real story, or at least some important parts of it, what would you most like to know?”

Carol looked at Robert. He was staring at her as though he couldn’t quite believe she was there. Carol knew the feeling.

She took a deep breath.

“I think what I most need to know is how did this happen? I know there’s some story about an Evil Queen and a bunch of drugs, but what happened to you? And could you remember? Could you remember Alice. . .and me?”

Hatter leaned against the wall by the door, trying to make himself as unobtrusive as possible. He was pretty good at that, he flattered himself, so it was no surprise that Robert looked straight at Carol as he started to answer her. This was personal stuff, and in the normal course of things Hatter would hate to get in the middle of marital squabbles. However, his responsibility to Alice trumped all the discomfort these oysters could throw at him, so he leaned a little further back and stayed still as he could.

Robert said, “I don’t know exactly how to answer that question. Let me think. It was so long ago. . .It’s been a long time for me Carol. I don’t know how much you know about time here, but it feels like millenia since I last saw you. I know it wasn’t quite that long—and I realize that for you it’s been how long? Ten years? Wow—I can’t imagine, but in a way I can because it’s been even longer for me.”

Robert touched his hand to the bridge of his nose—an awkward motion he’d always done while thinking. He tried to cast his memory back far enough to find the story that might satisfy Carol. He drummed the fingers of his other hand on the metal of his table.

“Let’s see. I was coming home from work one day. It was early spring—it must have been because the jasmine was just starting to bloom outside my office window. I was walking to the car outside of the building my office was in on campus. Two men in black suits came up to me. I thought they were FBI agents at first, from the way they stood, and from the way they asked to have a word. I’d done some work for the Bureau before as an expert witness—you remember all that though. They led me over to a black van. I told them I wasn’t going anywhere with them but that we could speak in my office. I turned to lead them to the building when one of them grabbed me from behind, getting his hand over my mouth pretty effectively. Not that I was screaming. I was too shocked—I couldn’t imagine why this was happening. The other one opened the van door and together they shoved me inside and drove off.”

Carol looked on, horror and guilt stretching over her features. Hatter tried to take deep but silent breaths through his nose to keep his reactions under control. He knew he wasn’t boasting to say there weren’t many denizens of Wonderland who would be able to keep their wits about them when faced with the oyster emotions that were swirling and eddying through the air of the small laboratory. Still, he needed to keep on top of it all so that the cocktail of emotions didn’t start to affect him without his noticing.

Carol tried to wrap her head around this new scenario, overlaying years of hurt and frustration at being abandoned. Taken in another light, this wasn’t new at all, as these thoughts of abduction and tragic accidents were the first that had occurred to her when her husband didn’t return home after work all those long years ago.

Robert continued. “They drove for a long time—I could hear them complaining about the traffic from the front of the van though it was separated from the cargo area where I was. They seemed surprised by it, so I knew they weren’t from around here. There. When they finally let me out it was in a section of town so bad I realized I’d probably be in more danger by calling out for help. At least these guys seemed to need me for something. They hauled me up a crumbling staircase and I resisted, thinking I was about to be beaten or tortured for information—of what kind I had no idea—but instead I was dropped in this room with a huge mirror taking up a whole wall. They shoved me toward it and I braced for impact but instead I ended up here—in Wonderland. There weren’t all those buildings like there are now. Instead I came out in the middle of a field, with just a little pavilion around the looking glass itself.”

“More men came and bundled me onto a horse-drawn cart. They brought me to the old palace and set me before the Queen. Have you met her?” he asked uncertainly. He hoped not, but everything was so confusing he hardly knew which way was up around here.

“No.”

“Oh. Well good. She’s a real piece of work. It’s a damn shame it was the King who went down instead of her. He was a nice fellow. Terribly cowed by his wife of course, but weren’t we all? Hell of a poker player, His Majesty. . . “

Carol glared, and Robert could see that she wasn’t ready to feel sympathy for anyone involved in his capture. He couldn’t blame her. he had certainly felt that way for a long time. Still, after so many years spent working with someone, it was hard to imagine them gone. He cleared his throat and wiped a suspiciously moist eye.

“Anyway, the Queen started demanding I classify human emotions for her. Since the alternative was having my head chopped off by a bunch of bloodthirsty cards, I did as she asked. Whatever I came up with pleased her enough to spare my life. I begged to be sent home, but she threatened to bring you and Alice here and behead you in front of me if I didn’t comply. She held that threat over me for a long time, but after a while things started to change. It was no longer Wonderland that seemed like a bad dream. Instead my life with you and Alice—working at the university and living in the little yellow house—started to seem like the dream. A pleasant one for the most part, but whenever I started to think about it too much I’d remember that you would be in danger if I thought of you. It was easier and safer for everyone if I just let it go.”

Carol’s eyes shone with unshed tears. She knew she was probably being unfair, but all the anger she’d held for her husband over the years still held a grip on her. “How could you just forget about us? No trying to find us or see how we were? You just moved on to a new life and forgot about us?”

“No! Well, yes, but I know now that the Queen was using her considerable influence to—well, you might think of it as brainwashing, but it’s so much more than that. It’s as if she can mold thoughts to her will by magic. Of course it’s more complicated than that, but maybe magic is the best way for you to think of it. She was urging me to forget about my human life, and was replacing my focus on that with so many interesting puzzles and so many outrageous demands that I scarcely had time to reflect.

“I was given a staff and a lab made to my specifications, with only the Walrus to watch over me. He was my jailer at first, and as time went on I found out that he had been brought over from our world years before to do the job that they wanted me to do. He was some sort of early psychologist, but his ideas were so primitive they weren’t of much help to the Hearts. Once I came up with the idea of a casino as a framework for inciting different emotions everything took off in a new direction and the Walrus never quite forgave me for pleasing the Queen.”

Hatter’s eyebrows raised. So the casino had been the Carpenter’s idea? That would be hard to square with Alice, who had been horrified at the place.

“Casino?” asked Carol. 

“Um, it was the mechanism we used to make oysters feel the kind of positive emotions the Queen wanted distilled.”

“Oysters? You mean, people from our world?”

The Carpenter winced.

“Yeah. The Hearts needed people to feel large amounts of positive emotions in order to create a distillate that allowed Wonderlanders to feel them. It was like an incredibly varied and ever more complex meth racket.”

“So you just, what? Kidnapped innocent humans and squeezed them dry? Was there anything left when you were through?”

Carol looked disgusted, and Hatter knew that Alice had shared many of these thoughts as the situation at the Heart’s Casino had revealed itself during her time in Wonderland.

“No! Well yes. Carol, honey, there was no way to avoid the kidnappings. They would keep happening until the Queen had what she wanted whether I cooperated or not. The oysters were drained, but human beings are more resilient than the Queen gave them credit for. I convinced her that it was too great a burden on the Wonderland ecosystem to let the oysters die here. We worked out a system of dumping them back on the other side of the glass, making it look like they’d attended some sort of raver party the night before and lost all their memories. Thanks to the time difference people probably barely lost a day or two. I’m sure there was some dehydration and lingering bad dreams, but it wasn’t like they were dead—Carol, you have to believe me—they were fine.”


	6. In which Hatter continues to hold very still for a very long time

 Hatter’s eyes were wide during this explanation.  He’d always assumed that the oysters were disposed of less humanely after their valuable pearly emotions had been extracted.  This put a rather different spin on the process though.

 

“Even if you were running a racket with a ‘renewable resource’,” Carol scoffed. “You were disrupting human lives to benefit these—others. I’m not sure that’s okay.”

 

“It wasn’t exactly for the benefit of most Wonderlanders,” Robert rumbled.  “Mostly just the Queen really, though the whole aristocracy benefited to some degree.  The common people suffered far more than a day or two off of work and a degree of dehydration.  They were forced into the addiction, Carol, enslaved by their own biological responses to human emotion.”

 

“But they’re not human!” Carol cried.  “They’re not even real people, for heaven’s sake.”

 

Robert Hamilton drew up short, a disappointed exhale puffed from his lungs.  “Not people, Carol?  Kyoko, Jack, the Hatter?  Do they seem like animals or robots to you?  They are just as real as you or me, I assure you.”

 

“People, yes maybe,” Carol struggled with her feelings and freshly upturned view of reality.  “But even so they’re not—not the same! Not like you or me or Alice.”

 

And here they were. Carol face to face with her xenophobia.  Hatter wondered if Carol had been able to sense his otherness all along and that was part of her dislike for him.

 

“I’m sorry you feel that way. More sorry than I can say.  I know it’s hard for you to understand, but after all this time—after the countless years I’ve spent here, I’m much more like the Hatter or the Prince than you or Alice, physiologically speaking.  I can go back to visit our world, but I can never live there.  If I were to try to, my body would change back to human and I’d most likely crumble to dust.  Wonderland is what sustains me now.  There’s no going back to the way things were for me.”

 

Carol looked stricken.  “You mean, I come here, bring you back from the dead, only to find out that you are no longer human and we can never be together anyway? What sort of a fairytale-land is this place?”

 

Hatter wondered if Carol realized that her words had betrayed her.  Despite the anger she’d been flinging this way and that, at least some part of Carol still loved the Carpenter and had been hoping for a happily ever after scenario. Hatter found that no matter how what Carol had said about Wonderlanders he still felt sorry for her.  Her disgust was so clearly rooted in fear that it was truly pitiable. In all of this storm of emotions Hatter thought he could feel her fear, specifically fear of loss.  Did this mean she was afraid of losing the Carpenter?  Or was this—

 

“So you’re like him,” she spat.  “That man who won’t let me or Alice have a moment to ourselves for the last two weeks.  And he’s like you—unable to live in the real world?”

 

—about Alice.  Of course.  Carol still loved her husband, but everything paled in comparison to her devotion to her daughter.  Losing Alice was the most upsetting outcome possible.

 

Robert Hamilton grumbled and cast his eyes about.  Hatter was as still as the dull metal of the door frame, as unmoving as the light fixtures, not even letting the steady circulation of the air through the overhead ducts lull him into taking a breath.  Carol had immediately forgotten his presence—fooling an oyster was ridiculously simple as their expectations were so patently obvious—but evading the notice of the Carpenter was an entirely different matter.  He was as sharp as the tools he presumably had (and used!) for furnishing the former Queen with whatever her shriveled heart had desired.  The searching sensation faded as the Carpenter sighed and answered his wife, giving up on the Hatter for the time being.

 

“Both worlds are real Carol.  I hope you can at least admit that much.  And I’ve never heard of a fairytale that handed everything to its protagonists on a silver platter.  Without a little dramatic tension it wouldn’t be much of a tale at all, right?”

 

He shifted on his metal slab, running a hand through his curly hair.  When he spoke next, it was as Robert Hamilton, a man hollowed out from missing his wife and daughter for more years than should be possible for anyone from the Alice world.

 

“So there you have it.  I am fated to stay in Wonderland or perish in our world, while you and Alice revile my new home. And this fellow, the Hatter, is running on borrowed time if he’s been on the other side of the looking glass as much as you say.”

 

Dark eyes shifted again, as the Carpenter tried to remember just when the Hatter had left them.  Hatter did not even allow himself to tense.  He merely existed—and barely that—until Robert’s gaze turned back to his wife.

 

“I don’t know him well, but he’s strong—been here a long time though never as one of the major players as far as I know. Is he serious about Alice?”

 

“How should I know?  He’s certainly been hounding us incessantly for the past two weeks, always popping in and out.  He makes plans with Alice and then shows up way too early but sometimes too late.  It’s making me crazy!”

 

Gee, Carol, tell us how you really feel. Hatter thought glumly that this whole enterprise was not turning out as he’d hoped.  Alice’s mother seemed determined to hate him.  She held his home and his very existence against him.  Could Alice ever truly accept him if her mother found him so abhorrent?

 

The Carpenter seemed reluctant to say much one way or another, perhaps part of him remained aware that he might still be about or maybe he hadn’t yet formed an opinion.

 

“And Alice?” Robert asked gruffly.  “How does she feel about him?”

 

Thank you, Robert Hamilton, for finally getting round to something Hatter himself wanted to know.  Careful not to give the game away in his eagerness to hear her answer, Hatter’s ears trained on Carol’s huff of annoyance.

 

“That’s the thing!” she complained.  “Alice isn’t doing any of her normal things.  Usually, whenever she meets a boy she likes she keeps him away from home as long as possible, then gets all nervous about my reaction, then it doesn’t even matter whether I like him or not—as soon as I’ve met him, it’s over.  It’s been that way since middle school.  It was even that way with Jack, the—er—King.  But ever since that Hatter guy walked through the door he’s been hanging around constantly!  They go out sometimes, but Alice has absolutely no problem with him in her space.  She doesn’t even like her girl friends to stay in her room too long, but this Hatter person barely leaves her alone to sleep.”

 

Carol paused for breath, finally, and at a raised eyebrow from her husband reviewed her last few words and amended her statement.

 

“But he does!  I’ve been very careful about that.  Though,” and here Carol very grudgingly continued, “he hasn’t seemed to press Alice about anything physical.  I suppose I can say that much for him.”

 

“That’s good to hear,” Robert said slowly, “Though not terribly surprising.  As fascinated with modernity as the Wonderlanders are, with some of them trying out revealing clothing and dancing and such, they are pretty old fashioned—one might even say stodgy and moralistic—when it comes to things like sex.”

 

“Oh,” said Carol, unsure what to do with that.

 

“They are different, Carol.  There’s no getting around it.  Their lives are different than human lives and their world is different than the human world.  But they’re not bad people, and it’s a beautiful world.  I always hoped—well, wished more than hoped to be honest with you, as the Queen had pretty well drained me of hope after the first few decades—but I wanted to show it to you.  You were so interested in the way people lived, and how styles were picked up and modified by different cultures.  If anyone picks up styles out of context it’s Wonderlanders, and I thought you’d be fascinated. . .like I was. Am.”

 

Robert looked up, but Carol’s hard face didn’t seem open to fascination in the least.  Hatter wasn’t certain what emotions were coming off of Carol now though the air was thick with whatever it was.  Anxiety, loneliness and regret all figured heavily into the mix at the moment though.  It was all he could do to stay present.

 

Carol looked away, even though there was only the empty wall and its mirror to catch her gaze.  The Carpenter tentatively stepped down off of his table, testing his legs to see if they would hold his weight.  When he found that they would, he nodded in relief and slowly took a step toward where Carol was sitting with her knees up on her slab.  She sat forward as if ready to steady him, but he put his hand down on the metal and leaned against it.

 

They looked at each other carefully for a few beats.  Hatter became very nervous, especially since the topic of conversation had just lately been how Alice-worlders were much more open about physical expressions.  Was there going to be kissing?  He didn’t know how he’d ever face Alice if he were subjected to that.  What more havoc would these bloody oysters cause?

 

“You look just the same,” said Carol, shaking her head disbelievingly.

 

“I guess I’m supposed to say that to you or you’ll be offended—and you do look great, as beautiful as ever—but I hope you’ll understand when I say what changes I see sadden and scare me.  The age gap between us has closed by now, I’d say.”

 

“Plus a couple of years,” Carol said ruefully as she studied his face.

 

“But if you leave Wonderland, if you leave me behind, it will only get worse,” he said somberly.  

 

Carol looked at him in shock.  Earlier on the lakeshore, Hatter hadn’t seen the need to spell it all out for her as regards inter-world relationships, but he couldn’t pretend that these very issues hadn’t been weighing on him heavily as he hurried back and forth through the looking glass.  He hadn’t been told in so many words that he would die if he kept spending time in Alice’s world, but still he’d never tried to stay for longer than a few hours at a time, steadfastly ignoring the pitying glances of the Rabbits each time he returned to Wonderland alone.  Something within had warned him against trying to stay with Alice, and Robert’s words settled over him like a lead blanket.  There could be no life for him in Alice’s world.  But could he manage a life here without her?

 

Hatter almost gave himself away by shifting uncomfortably, but thankfully Robert was too wrapped up in his heartfelt conversation with his wife.

 

“Even if you won’t—even if you don’t want to try to move forward together, could you at least consider coming here?  You can always change your mind and go back.  It’ll be years before your time here makes any of the kinds of changes that I’ve experienced, but you can’t have it the other way round.  If you decide to stay in your world, That’ll be it.  Time will go on here, but there you’ll age, and die.”

 

Robert’s face remained staid and serious, but his voice had cracked with emotion on the last word. Carol’s eyes were wide with intensity, and Hatter took it as a good sign that she was no longer railing against her husband.  Maybe she could be made to see reason after all?

 

“Will you at least think it over?” Robert asked.

 

Carol nodded, and Hatter released a small sigh of relief.  The Carpenter looked sharply over his shoulder, but Hatter was saved by the door opening next to him.  Jack Heart walked through, and Hatter moved away from the wall after him.  With any luck no one would be the wiser.

 

“Carol!” Jack said brightly, obviously trying not to gag on the shifting sea of emotion threatening to break over his head in the small laboratory.  “Kyoko and her cohort tell me that the Carpenter would benefit from stretching his legs at this stage.” He turned to Robert.  “Would you feel up to accompanying your wife and I on an abridged tour of the castle?  I would hate for her to return to the Alice World without seeing something of Wonderland.”

 

Again, as if Hatter had stuffed her in a box on their way here.  He bit back a further bloody sigh but rolled his eyes expressively since Jack couldn’t see him over his shoulder.  The Carpenter looked between the two of them with amusement lurking behind his impressive brows.

 

“Yeah, I can probably handle that,” he said, standing fully and reaching his arms up in a stretch.

 

“Excellent!” said Jack, sweeping further into the room to offer Carol his arm, which she took dazedly.  She shot a concerned look over her shoulder at Robert, but he was already moving to follow them.  

 

As Robert moved past Hatter, the behatted man put his hand out to support the Carpenter.  “Are you really up to this mate?” he asked lightly.

 

“It’ll get better as I move more,” the Carpenter returned, pulling away slightly as they passed into the hallway.  “How much of that did you get exactly?” he queried with a raised brow.

 

Hatter shrugged noncommittally, and hurried to follow Carol and the King.  No sense giving away all his tricks.

 

Jack had led Carol to an antique lift at the end of the modern white corridor.  He unlatched the gate and helped her in, waiting regally as Hatter and Robert fit themselves into the remaining space before pulling the old fashioned lever and beginning his tour.

 

“Though the lower halls are obviously recently redone, the castle itself is much older.  It was first constructed in your thirteenth century, I believe, though the time flux shifted a few times in between then and now, so it’s hard to say quite how old it is according to Alice-world time.”

 

Carol’s eyebrows rose.

 

“Well how old is it according to your time?” she asked hesitantly.  

 

Jack laughed melodically as if she had said something wittily diverting. “Oh Carol, that wouldn’t be a terribly helpful measure now would it?” he replied, patting her hand where it still rested on his arm.

 

Hatter caught the Carpenter rolling his eyes at the King’s back and gave him a conspiratory wink.  A slight lifting of one corner of Robert’s mouth was his silent response.  They exited the lift at the end of the picture gallery on the second floor.

 

Jack droned on, flashing his perfect teeth and playing the perfect tour guide to his family home.  Really, it was ridiculous how much time he was spending on Alice’s family.  Hatter scowled at the thought that this indicated an alarming level of interest in Alice from the reigning monarch.

 

The Carpenter held back and Hatter kept pace with him. Robert idly looked at a fifteenth century triptych depicting the phases of Queenship though he didn’t seem terribly interested.  Hatter hadn’t actually seen these works before but at the moment his mind was not on art history.

 

“I guess this is the part where I ask to you what your intentions are for my daughter,” Robert commented gruffly. “I’d guessed you were up to no good looking so young and flashy lately, I just didn’t know it would affect me personally.”

 

Hatter clasped his hands behind his back in his most innocent pose.  “With Alice, you mean?  Only the most honorable intentions here. . .” A smile that he worried might qualify as goofy spread over his features before he could stop it. “She’s quite a girl!  A woman, I should say.  There’s not much that’s girlish about Alice, despite her youth.  But she’s warm and brave and true, even if she does have this unreasonable fear of heights.  Ah well, no one’s perfect—”

 

Hatter realized he was rambling.  Where had his silver tongue got off to today?  The air was mostly clear of oyster emotions, but Hatter still didn’t seem to be in possession of all of his faculties.  Highly irregular. He cleared his throat and tried again.

 

“I’d like her to come back here,” he admitted.  “To live, with me.  I don’t know that Alice has realized this, or even allowed herself to consider the possibility. After all, it’s only been two weeks for her and she’s still pretty angry about everything that’s happened.  Well, furious really. But I’m not sure how long I can keep this up.”

 

“Travelling back and forth you mean?” the Carpenter clarified.

 

Hatter nodded.

 

“I never realized quite how dangerous it was.  I mean, I knew about the risk of a shift, but general usage is much more draining than I’d expected.”

 

“Few people realize just how much energy the looking glass uses when it’s activated.  Most of it comes from Wonderland itself, by way of the ring, but some of it comes from the travellers themselves.  You look fine at the moment, but I wouldn’t advise many more trips if you want to remain that way.”

 

Hatter cast his eyes downward dejectedly.  If he couldn’t go to Alice’s world then there would be no one there to persuade her.  She needed more time to process what had happened.  Sure, he could leave her there for a few years, give her a fortnight or so without his presence to see how she felt, but Hatter lived in fear of a shift taking place that would realign the glass with some distant point in the Alice world’s future.  Leaving her be seemed like tempting fate, and Fate was a cruel mistress.  He should know, having courted her often enough in his youthful ignorance.

 

Still, all was not lost.  He would certainly take Carol home and see Alice then.  It was too much to hope for that she’d conveniently fall into his arms and allow herself to be whisked home with him, but maybe Carol would say something—anything—that would convince Alice she at least needed to come visit her father.

 

“I believe,” Robert began, “that we then have at least one goal in common.  I also want to get Alice back here.  For good.”

 

Hatter’s brows rose.  

 

“You don’t want to give her the opportunity to choose her normal and precious little oyster life, making the most of what paltry time she’s been given in some beautiful but brief adherence to your world’s natural laws?” he asked incredulously.

 

“Well when you put it that way,” Robert responded wryly.  “But no.  Sorry, but I don’t buy into this essentialist belief in one realm, one lifetime, no exceptions.  I’m a scientist, and I’ll take what’s put in front of me and study it until it’s more questions than answers, but I want to keep going, and I want Alice and Carol here with me.  If it’s true that they haven’t formed any other long-term romantic attachments in their current reality, then I can’t believe myself too selfish when I say they’d be better off here.”

 

Hatter couldn’t say he’d completely followed that in its entirety, but he wholeheartedly endorsed the sentiments behind it.

 

“They barely seem to have friends, let alone romantic attachments,” Hatter remarked quietly, as they were advancing on Carol and the King who waited at the end of the gallery.  “They both have jobs that they value highly—Carol an interior decorator and Alice a karate instructor—but I don’t see why those couldn’t translate to useful pursuits on this side of the glass.”

 

The Carpenter nodded.  Hatter was widely known for being able to take the measure of things, so he’d trust him in this.

 

They descended the grand Romanesque stair into a wide foyer that had been more haphazardly decorated than anything they’d experienced yet.  Suits of armour coexisted with a white and plum checkered tile floor, while a disco ball hung from the gilt and crystal chandelier and several rustic animal heads adorned the walls over the entryways.

 

Carol raised her eyebrows at the mishmash.  Jack barely seemed to notice, but Hatter noticed a slightly familiar devious look coming over Robert’s face.  That was an Alice look!

 

“Carol,” he said, gaining her attention, “You see here what I was talking about regarding stylistic appropriation.  As someone with an eye for interiors I’m sure it’s hard for you to stomach.  Usually the monarchs choose a certain style, but this place is a complete mess.  If you don’t mind me saying so, Your Majesty.” The Carpenter gave the King a meaningful glance that quickly replaced his mildly offended expression with a brief flicker of wiley calculation before it smoothed into that smarmy gentlemanliness that Carol lapped up.

 

“Yes,” he sighed, “I’ve been having difficulty making up my mind.  It’s just so hard understanding what all my options are.  I’d like something classic, but still modern.  I don’t know if that’s something you’d understand. . .” he trailed the bait and it wasn’t a moment before Carol bit, hard.

 

“You mean, you need someone to help you see what styles are available nowadays?” she asked eagerly.  “If there’s one thing I understand, it’s wanting your living space—your very habitat—to reflect your personal values and goals.  I’ve worked with many clients on very ambitious projects in a variety of styles…” Carol chattered on, and Jack nodded politely, eyes gleaming triumphantly.

 

Hatter was practically stuffing his hands in his mouth to stifle his laughter, not so much at Carol’s eagerness, which was more sweet than anything, but at the Carpenter’s smug expression.  It was so like Alice when she’d scored a point over her mother.

“I think everything will work out just fine,” the Carpenter said, nodding in satisfaction.


	7. In which Alice must make a choice

“I’m home!” called Alice, stepping inside the door.  She hung up her jacket as she heard her mother’s faint greeting from the kitchen. She ran her hands through her shoulder-length dark hair, redoing her ponytail as she went.

 

“What a fiasco! I told Josh I didn’t want him practicing with the advanced class yet, but the second he turned 18 he seemed to think he’d developed superhuman powers or something.  His wrist was just sprained, but his mom seemed ready to slap a lawsuit on somebody.  Personally, I think he was hamming it up for the doctor, trying to get a painkiller prescription…”

 

She entered the living room, surprised but not unduly so to see Hatter coming to meet her.

 

“Hey Hatter!  I wasn’t sure if you’d want to wait when you found out I was going to be late.  I’m sure Mom told you I had to hang out in the ER with a student.”

 

“Hmm, yes,” said Hatter, mischief and just a hint of worry glinting in his dark eyes.

 

“What is it?” She set down her gym bag with a plop and lowered her voice, “Mom isn’t giving you a hard time again, is she?  Ugh, I’ll talk to her…”

 

“No, no, actually, we sorted through our differences and are finally, shall we say, on the same page.”

 

“Really?  David and Carol getting along?  Now I’m really scared.  What could possibly have happened while I was at the emergency room for an hour?”

 

Alice walked past the kitchen toward her room, then stopped and did a double take.  Sitting on a bar stool at the island was her father, Robert Hamilton, looking just like he’d looked when he’d disappeared—the same way he’d looked as he died in her arms.

 

“Jesus Christ!” Alice yelled.  She felt the shock of the sight rush through her veins, filling her up with adrenaline and all sort of other chemicals that probably wouldn’t help her if she’d actually just lost her mind.

 

“Well hello to you too, pumpkin,” said Robert, a smile lurking in his twinkling eyes.

 

Her eyes darted between her father and Hatter, who had followed her into the hall area.  His eyes were firmly fixed on her, which didn’t help her to decide whether or not she was hallucinating.  The three of them stood there for a moment, Hatter observing Alice bemusedly, Alice staring at her long-absent, recently deceased father, and Robert watching Alice over his teacup.

 

“Sorry it took so long!” called Carol, pushing through the door that went down to their laundry room and storage space, struggling to balance a cardboard moving box on top of a heaping pile of laundry in a basket.  “I thought I still had a few things, but since I was down in the dank storeroom anyway I started a load of wash. Then I realized Alice left all her dress clothes in the dryer where they were sitting there getting wrinkled and I thought I’d better get them too.”

 

Hatter sprang to her side, “Let me help you with that, Carol,” he said, lifting the basket out of her hands and bringing it over to the kitchen island.  Robert had risen as well, and grabbed the plain box before it could topple from Hatter’s basket.

 

“Still doing six things at once I see,” he said fondly to his wife.  Alice stood there, mouth open, as her father and mother smiled at each other.  Never in a million years had Alice imagined this scene.  Sure, she’d thought endlessly about what would happen if she successfully found her father, but there were no happy reunion scenes among them.  The best she’d ever come up with was Robert failing to recognize them due to a permanent case of amnesia.  What she’d actually been hoping for all those years were some answers—the real story behind why Robert had left, and some absolution.  

 

All she’d really wanted was to know that there was nothing she or her mother could have done differently—no way they could have kept Robert from leaving.  Since she’d learned of his abduction to Wonderland, she had breathed a sigh of relief.  There truly wasn’t anything that ten year old Alice could have done to change their fate.  She’d been sad that learning the truth was followed so closely by losing her father for good—but it had felt good to have that closure.  Seeing him now was so shocking that it was fortunate that she was young and healthy.  That was all that was saving her from this recipe for a heart attack.  

 

“Dad?” she said disbelievingly.

 

“Yep!” said Carol with a smile.

 

Alice’s father set the box in his hands on the counter and took his wife’s hand.

 

Alice’s eyes narrowed.

 

“Hatter!”

 

“Yes, Alice?” he asked, as suavely as he could manage with the creeping feeling that was going up his spine

 

She turned on him, guns blazing.  “ What have you done? ”

 

Hatter backed up into the living room reflexively as Alice advanced on him.

 

“Nothing—that is! Nothing I wasn’t asked to do.  By your mother, by your father, by your arrogant jerk of an ex-boyfriend.  All your people, Alice, not mine!”

 

“My father is dead!  Was dead!  What the hell is going on here?” Alice looked so ferociously perplexed that the Hatter found it oddly adorable.  If she caught him looking at her adoringly right now he might be short a few appendages by lunchtime though, so he carefully schooled his expression.

 

“Your mother and I had a little talk, and during this—er, discussion, she asked me about how we met, and several things about your father came up that I thought I ought to set the record straight on.”

 

Alice looked anguished.  “But it was all over with Dad.  Over and done with.”

 

“For you maybe,” he said, lowering his voice so that her parents wouldn’t hear him from the kitchen, “but it was still an open wound for your mother.  I thought she deserved that closure—to visit his grave.”

 

“And look how that turned out!” Alice hissed, gesturing toward the room where her father stood alive and well and drinking tea.  “That is not closure!”

 

“Well, once we got to the cemetery Jack Heart had already given the order to exhume his body and prepare for reanimation!  I know I mentioned the procedure to you at some point.”

 

Alice shuddered, and Hatter belatedly recalled that they had been watching some sort of Alice world entertainment about zombies, which was not actually the best introduction to how things played out in Wonderland.  Oops.

 

“Anyway, he had your mother down there to do the honors before I could get a word in edgewise!  But even so, isn’t it a good thing all told?  Your mother certainly seems to think so.  And I’ve always gotten on with the Carpenter well enough, so I’m with the others in Wonderland who are happy to see him up and about.”

 

Alice gaped, then attempted to backpedal. “It’s not that I’m not glad he’s—er—up and about!” she protested. “But it’s more than a little  unexpected , okay?”

 

Hatter nodded.  “Okay.  I can get that.  Take a few deep breaths.  Do some yoga, a kata or two, whatever it takes to get yourself calm.  But this is exciting stuff Alice!  I thought you’d be up for a little adventure if even your mum is.”

 

This teasing remark had Alice arching a brow in a way that gave Hatter the giggles.  Alice followed him as he peeked back in the kitchen where Robert was looking through the box of his old things that Carol had saved while she ran around the house manically stuffing clothes and housewares into a gigantic suitcase that she’d pulled from the hall closet. Hatter hoped that thing had hidden wheels, because he knew it would fall to him to be the good little suitor and carry it for Alice’s mother.

 

“Mom, what are you doing?” gasped Alice, eyes rushing past her father since she found she couldn’t handle thinking about him yet.

 

“Well, sweetie,” Carol huffed as she hauled a bag full of shoes over to her huge suitcase that was already overflowing with sample cards and catalogs, “The King—of course you remember Jack Chase—Heart, whatever—wants to hire me to help him decide on a style for his reign!  And since your father is back, but can’t really be  back , I’ve decided to go and stay with them at the castle for a while.”

 

“The K—what?  What castle? I thought that Casino place fell down? But, but why?  Why would you even consider going back to that place?”

 

Carol looked at Alice with concern.  Her eyes flicked over to Hatter who was standing a step or two behind Alice.

 

“I see what you mean,” she said ruefully.

 

Alice’s worried eyes narrowed and she looked between the two of them warily.  “You’ve been talking about me,” she accused.

 

Hatter laughed a bit despite the rather serious air in the kitchen.  “No offense to Carol, but Alice, do you really think we have much else to talk about?”

 

Carol nodded in agreement but added, “Though we did find some other subjects to discuss on this little trip.”  She looked at her husband and smiled as if she still couldn’t quite believe he was here.

 

She continued, “From what Hatter and your father have told me though, there are a few points about Wonderland and everything that’s been happening there that you need to have cleared up Alice.”

 

Alice scoffed, “ I   need to have cleared up?  I don’t think I need  you telling  me about the details of  my adventure!”

 

Hatter forced himself not to meet the eyes of Alice’s parents at this moment when she was being the most childish he’d seen her act.  He desperately did not want to be part of what Alice might see as “the grown ups” talking down to her.  Alice was extremely adept at self-defense, even in conversation, and Hatter didn’t want to be shut out.  Especially since if Alice still refused to make the trip to Wonderland he was going to be shut out indefinitely.  Either by his own common sense or by Death itself. But how could he possibly communicate this to Alice without sounding dictatorial and as though he were forcing her back to Wonderland on the ultimate guilt trip. Alice, leave your world behind and come live in mine or else I’ll die.  Not merely die, at least not the way his lot thought of things.  He’d burn up—be consumed as fuel for his final trip through the Looking Glass.

 

But how could he put it so that she wouldn’t resent him perpetually?

 

“Alice?” Robert queried, “Are you ready to talk yet?  I can give you a few more minutes, but we’ve got to be getting back through the glass soon.”  He glanced down at his wrist and Alice saw that somebody, either Hatter or her mother, had gone through her stuff and found his watch for him.

 

“But why?” Alice blustered.  She clearly wasn’t ready to talk, but Alice was probably better suited than most to rise to the occasion. Hatter hoped she could handle it, anyway.

 

“Take a breath, sweetie,” her dad said, and it was so familiar and nostalgic that Alice almost choked on her overwhelming feelings.

 

“Like your mother said, you only heard part of the story in Wonderland. Here’s the drastically abridged version what you probably need to know to deal with what’s happening.  Death is not so final in Wonderland as it seems to be here.  My team found my directions and with Carol’s help were able to bring me back. But I can’t leave Wonderland for very long at a time now, or the stress will become too great for my body.  While being on the Wonderland side of the glass doesn’t harm humans, no one from Wonderland can stay indefinitely in this world.”

 

He paused to let this sink in for a moment.  Alice whirled toward Hatter, eyes wide and questioning.

 

A sudden lump formed in his throat at her concern.  She really did care.  “Afraid so,” he confirmed softly.

 

She took a step toward him and shoved his shoulder, hard.  Tears stung her eyes.  “You idiot!  You didn’t think to mention something like this?”

 

Hatter held up his hands.  “I tried!  Alice, I tried!  And every time you just went on a tirade about how horrible my world is and how you’d had enough of it.  I...I didn’t know what to do.” His voice lowered, and his eyes shifted to the side.  “I didn’t want to you to feel pressured.  You were still so torn up about your father, and Jack Heart, and the whole situation. I wanted you to want to give me a chance to change your mind about Wonderland.”

 

“So instead of talking to me about it you kidnapped my mother?” Alice asked, anger overriding the horror she felt about it all.

 

“Kidnapped is a very strong word,” he hedged.

 

“Baited, maybe?” offered Carol with a small smile.

 

Hatter shot her a mock glare, relieved to finally be on good enough tems with Carol to interact in such a way.  Alice pushed this levity away with an impatient gesture.

 

“So you’re what?  Risking your life so we can eat pizza and watch old zombie movies?  That’s crazy!”

 

Alice went to shove him again, but Hatter caught her wrist.

 

“I can’t think of a better reason to risk it,” he said sincerely.

 

Alice looked into his eyes then, and nodded firmly.  She turned to her father.  “It’s bad for him to be on this side of the glass?” She asked.

 

“Yes.  He’s managed remarkably well so far, but he will start to deteriorate in this world and one of these trips his body won’t be able to take the stress of the journey.”

 

Alice sucked in a breath.  “Then what are we waiting for?”  She ran to her room and came right back out a moment later, holding a backpack.  As she ran into the kitchen, she called out,

 

“Mom, stop it!  That’s enough junk.  Who’s going to be able to carry that anyway?  Didn’t you notice?  They already have plenty of random stuff in Wonderland already.”

 

Hatter’s breath hitched as Alice bullied her mother into closing up her enormous suitcase.  Carol insisted on turning out all the lights in the apartment, though Robert pointed out that they’d probably be back before the night was through, even if they spent weeks on the other side.

 

As soon as her parents seemed to have their belongings under control, Alice grabbed Hatter’s hand and pulled him toward the door.

 

“Alice, there are still things I wanted to tell you.  About Wonderland, about how your father fixed it so none of the oysters were harmed—”

 

Hatter was cut off by Alice’s fierce glare.

 

“None of that matters.  I mean,” she relented a little, “we can talk about all of that later.  What matters now is getting you back where you’re safe.”

 

“But once we’re there,” he pressed.  “Will you stay?”

 

Alice’s eyes gleamed teasingly.  “How about I give you the opportunity to change my mind about Wonderland, and then we’ll see, hmm?”

 

Hatter smiled and put his hat on his head in preparation for their departure.  That was a challenge that he was more than willing to accept.


End file.
